Largest animal on Earth spotted in Massachusetts in rare sighting

July 4 revellers in Massachusetts got a special gift when they spotted the largest animal on the planet. The rare sighting of the blue whale happened off the North Shore of Massachusetts. A tour agency said that people on the Cape Ann Whale Watch boat got a real close look at a blue whale on the Fourth of July.

Detailing the sighting, Tina McMahon-Foley of the Gloucester-based company wrote in a Facebook post, “We spent the most extraordinary 30 minutes in the presence of a blue whale."

“This encounter had passengers on other whale watch boats cheering one another as one boat would leave, and another would move in. “A single animal ignited a sense of comradery between strangers.”

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The blue whale was seen under the water doing four-minute dives.

McMahon-Foley revealed that the last time she saw a blue whale was 20 years back.

According to NOAA Fisheries, North Atlantic blue whales can grow to about 90 feet and weigh over 100,000 pounds.

At 108 feet in length, blue whales are the largest animal to ever exist on Earth and can weigh up to 270 metric tonnes. Over 350,000 blue whales lived in the ocean hundreds of years ago, but human activities, such as whaling, have greatly reduced their population.

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Whale calf seen suckling on mama whale in amazing sighting

Last year, scientists got a rare glimpse into the mystical underwater world as they captured a mother blue whale nursing its calf on camera for the first time. The footage was captured off the coast of Timor-Leste in Southeast Asia and shows a young calf suckling on its mother. The mother-child duo were on their annual 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) migration between southern Australia and the Banda Sea near eastern Indonesia.

Several species of marine wildlife regularly travel from the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. The mother whale and her calf were spotted in the cetacean hotspot of the sea where the region’s over 3,000 metre-deep ocean channels act as a major migratory highway for marine wildlife travelling between the two major oceans. Blue whales, melon-headed whales, beaked whales, six dolphin species and short-finned pilot whales, along with some sharks and turtles regularly pass through this region.

The Timor-Leste waters are a treasure mound for scientists studying blue whales where they caught glimpses of the private lives of blue whales, including "amorous adults in courtship".